In one he takes over the world with an evil robot army

At first glance, it seems a little desperate. Marvel Studios announced that actor Robert Downey Jr. will play the villain Doctor Doom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). What is confusing to many is that Downey Jr. played the now deceased hero Tony Stark aka Iron Man in the same universe for over ten years. The fear is that the unusual casting could be an attempt to rehash old formulas for success instead of thinking up something new.

Whatever the actual reason, Marvel will come up with a reason why Robert Downey Jr.’s face would be used in a second role. These three scenarios are most likely:

Tony Stark and Doctor Doom swap bodies

In addition to the casting decision, the film studio revealed another important piece of information: The former Tony Stark actor will not only wear Doctor Doom’s costume, we also already know his name: Victor von Doom. So it can be ruled out that Tony simply puts on a different suit of armor and it turns out he never died. Instead, viewers will have to get used to seeing Downey Jr. as a completely new character in the near future.

One possible narrative would be a body-swapping story like in the films Freaky Friday or In the Body of the Enemy. In this case, Victor would slip into the body of the deceased Tony and terrorize the multiverse from then on. After Iron Man’s tragic death, this would be a story about the inner conflicts of all the characters who still remember him as a friend.

There is already a template for this variant: In the 2010 comic What If? Iron Man: Demon in an Armor, authors David Michelinie and Bob Layton and artist Graham Nolan ask themselves the question: What if Victor von Doom and Tony Stark had switched bodies in college? Full of envy of Tony’s supposedly comfortable life, Victor decides to use sophisticated technology and a ruse to swap memories with him. The result: While the Stark Empire becomes an evil entity, Doom’s homeland Latveria thrives thanks to the advanced technology of Doom Industries.

Robert Downey Jr. plays an AI with its own will

A personality profile describes Tony Stark in the first Avengers film as “erratic, egocentric and unable to work as a team”. It is therefore plausible that he created a digital copy of himself before his death in Avengers 4: Endgame. There is also a comic template for this. In Invincible Iron Man, Riri Williams – who we already saw in the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – takes on the name and armor of Iron Man. Her mentor: a hologram of Anthony Stark.

The AI ​​looks like Tony, speaks like Tony and grows into its own character over time. In the comic series Secret Empire #4, which was published shortly afterwards, the Tony copy fights against a fascist Captain America.

As fans know, technologies in the MCU often develop a will of their own, especially when they were designed by Tony Stark. The AI ​​Jarvis is now known as Vision, and the attempt to design a protective system made up of robots resulted in the murderous software Ultron. With this in mind, The film version of Doctor Doom could be an evil copy of Tony. This could lead us into exciting depths.

Evil version from another universe

For those who don’t remember: In the film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Scarlett Witch wipes out a group of superheroes in a parallel universe who call themselves the “Illuminati”. Noticeably absent is an alternate version of Iron Man. In the comics, he leads the Illuminati, but is nowhere to be seen in the film. Instead, we see robots that are reminiscent of Ultron designs from Marvel’s The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.

In 2022, Marvel Studios producer Richie Palmer explains in an interview with Empire that the Illuminati operates in the universe where Ultron functions as intended.

This could be used to develop a story in which Robert Downey Jr. plays a version of Tony Stark named Victor Doom. This version could take advantage of the new power vacuum without the Illuminati and take over the world with the help of his robot army. In the comics, Doctor Doom has so-called Doombots.

There are countless evil versions of Tony Stark in the comic book multiverse. In Exiles #23, for example, a version of Iron Man establishes a dictatorship, and in Superior Iron Man, Stark uses his technology to exploit and manipulate people. All of these stories end in a similar way: Iron Man is mostly successful in his mission to rule the world, but in the end he is left alone – lonely and unloved.

“The only thing you’re fighting for is yourself,” Captain America accuses Tony Stark in the first Avengers film. Viewers know that doesn’t prove to be true in the finale of Endgame. Now the studio has the opportunity to tell what happens when Iron Man actually only fights for himself.